To all Win7x64 users who experience clicks, crackles and pops:

One thing to try if you haven't done so already is to change your power saving profile from "Balanced" to "High Performance". Start->Search for program and files -> "Power" -> "Change Power-saving settings" -> "Show additional plans" -> "High Performance" Before doing so DPC latency checker showed red peaks every 10-20 seconds. After: I'm all green and happy!!! I'm running a desktop so I'm not sure about you laptop users.. but I've been banging my head a couple of weeks with this and finally managed to figure this out. Cheers, Ithai

Sure thing. I'm amazed. Though I didn't have any problems with the balanced setting, the high performance setting definitely lowered my DPC latency, almost half. DPC dropped from max 250 microsec on balanced to max 136 microsec on high performance. Wonder what's going on... CPU (AMD Phenom II x6) temp went up slightly, but I can live with that

It's also caused by CPU Throttling, due to how digital audio is processed. In your BIOS, disabling the following features are known to make a big difference: C1E Intel Speedstep Intel EIST (same as speedstep, but sometimes also an option) HPET (High Precision Event Timer) In Core i* series processors, you should also look for: CPC C-State CPU (sometimes called CPU, I don't know why it's called that) --------------------- Those features usually make the biggest differences. Also, this is only for Intel. AMD does not have the same kind of fix. At best, some AMD motherboards have an AMD C1E option, but not all. AMD Cool N Quiet is as close as it comes, but it does not fix the issue for all users.